Book Review: The Art Of Storytelling, by Nancy Mellon, USA, 1998

A good story engages listeners mind, body and spirit. Compare it with desert dry presentations of pie charts, bullet points and carefully cultivated poise and polish.

What’s missing is the uniquely human whimsy of imagination and creative self-expression. The storyteller’s powerful use of archetypes, metaphors, sound and movement mysteriously show us ourselves. It’s better and more real than Reality TV.

Nancy Mellon’s “The Art Of Story Telling” is rich with story after story, nibbling and coaxing your own ideas and creativity to speak and be heard. My husband bought this book at one of Nancy’s workshops (she was visiting Australia from the USA). He was thrilled with her skills in unfurling each character and then tucking them away as she returned to narration. Her easy control and confident releasing of control inspired him to engage all his senses and trust himself. He saw speaking in public and what you can do with it in an entirely new light. That workshop was for adults. All were gathered in a circle, breaths held for the next word.

Now imagine you are giving a presentation. Wouldn’t you love to have your listeners engaged, inspired and hanging on your every word? Even presenting Plastic Widgets and the implementation of Policy Reviews will be fascinating when you place your service, product or idea in the context of relevant, juicy storytelling.

Please learn how to do it and save us all from boring, polite presentations!

(There are a number of storytelling books from which you can learn. Nancy Mellon is a “psychotherapist who specialises in healing through the arts.” Here’s her website: http://www.healingstory.com/ And of course you can learn how to jazz up your boring presentation through creativity and story by working 1:1 with me: www.goddessofpublicspeaking.com.au )